I've been in several threads lately where the topic has been all about Audyssey and I've noted that there's not actually a thread specifically for it. There's one that seems to be about it, but it's titled as being about the Denon 3806. Audyssey, of course, exists in far more receivers than the 3806 nowadays, so I thought I'd throw a starter into the pool to see if people were interested in having one thread to discuss all Audyssey issues/comments/questions/stories/impressions that they've come up with from their personal receiver-experiences.

Myself, i was quite anti-Audyssey when I first came across it. My ears were quite used to what they'd had before which was very bass & treble heavy. Time has passed and I've really come to understand the strengths of Audyssey and respect the clean, flat signal that I now love and enjoy (and couldn't imagine being without). I'd love to hear from anyone else that wants to chime in or discuss issues.

The microphone has been calibrated for grazing incidence and so it must point to the ceiling during calibration. Any other orientation will produce incorrect results.

The microphone response has been calibrated to match (on average) the response of an industry-standard ¼ instrumentation microphone. It is critical to use the microphone that came with the receiver and not one from another model that may have a different calibration curve.

It is also important to place the microphone on a tripod or other stand so that it is at ear height. We strongly recommend against holding the microphone in your hand because this can give rise to low frequency handling noise that will cause the MultEQ filters to compensate by cutting those frequencies. Furthermore, it is not recommended to place the microphone on the back of the couch or recliner. If a tripod is used, care must be taken to ensure that the microphone is placed at a height just above the seat back so that reflections from the seat do not cause problems at higher frequencies.

The first microphone position is used to calculate the distances to each loudspeaker and subwoofer and set the delays. It is also used to measure and set the trims. So, it is important to place the microphone in the main listening seat for the first measurement.

MultEQ measures the background noise level in the room before playing the test signal from each speaker. For the measurements to be valid, the signal to noise ratio must be above a certain threshold. If it is not, the test signal from that speaker will repeat at a higher level. If the noise in the room happens to be higher during some of the speaker measurements, then the test signals from those speakers will sound louder than the test signals from the other speakers. This does not affect the calculation of trim levels. If the room noise is too high even after the test signals increase in level, then an error message will be displayed warning the user that measurements can not be completed.

After the first position is measured, MultEQ measures other positions in the room around the listening area. These do not necessarily have to be in each individual seat. The idea is to capture as many points around the listening area as possible so that the acoustical problems that affect the quality of sound within that area are minimized.

For example, we recommend taking 3 positions on the couch facing the TV and then 3 more positions about 3 feet in front of the couch and parallel to the first three. Measurements up against the back or side walls should be avoided.

Some loudspeakers have rather problematic responses when measured off-axis (i.e. more than 15° away from the imaginary straight line that points to the listening position). In these systems, measurements taken too far away from the center line will show a reduced high-frequency response that may result in overcorrection and thus overly bright sound. Although it is difficult to predict which type of loudspeaker will have these off-axis problems we have most often observed them in poorly-designed multiple-driver arrays that exhibit very high off-axis lobing. In these situations we recommend a tighter calibration pattern centered around the main listening position and making sure that the mic is not placed in extreme locations and certainly not outside the plane of the front main speakers.

Checking the Results

Once MultEQ calibration is complete the results are stored in the receiver memory.

It is important to activate MultEQ by selecting one of the target curves. This is not performed by default after the calibration is finished and must be selected by the user. In a THX system we recommend using the Flat setting that allows the re-equalization to work as intended. In other systems, we recommend Audyssey for movie playback and Flat for music playback. Unfortunately, the music industry does not have any mixing standards like the movie industry so some music program material may sound better with the Audyssey setting. Front Align also uses the Audyssey process, but it does not apply the filters to the two front loudspeakers. Manual is not an Audyssey setting and does not use MultEQ filters. It is a simple parametric equalizer and will be subject to all the limitations that come with parametric EQ.

Small vs. Large speakers. This is the most commonly discussed topic by MultEQ users. The first thing to understand is that it is not a personal insult to your system if your speakers were detected as Small. It simply means, that in the room they were measured the - 3 dB point was detected at 80 Hz or above. This may happen even if the manufacturer's spec shows that the speaker is capable of playing lower. In fact, there are several benefits at crossing the speakers over at 80 Hz that have to do with power handling and headroom in the bass region that will be handled by the subwoofer amplifier.

The second most common question also relates to Small vs. Large. In the Denon receivers, MultEQ will designate as Large any speaker that has a -3 dB point below 80 Hz. For non-THX speaker systems this is an arbitrary definition that often causes confusion. All it means is that the speaker will not be bass managed unless the user tells it to be. Because Audyssey is not in charge of bass management, we have to abide by the manufacturers' rules and simply report the information found by the measurements to the bass management system.

In situations where the speakers do not play significantly below 80 Hz, an additional step must be taken to make sure that there is no loss of bass information. The user must set the speaker to Small manually so that bass management is performed properly.

Polarity: MultEQ checks the absolute polarity of each loudspeaker and reports it to the user. This is simply a report and does not affect the subsequent calculations in any way. It just asks you to check the wiring to make sure it is connected properly to each speaker. Sometimes we get false alarms. This is usually because the speaker has a driver (usually the mid-range driver) wired out-of-phase intentionally to make up for some problems at the crossover region. If a phase warning is shown, it is not a cause of alarm. Simply check the cables and hit Skip if everything is fine. Again, this does not have any effect on the EQ results.

Subwoofer distance: in many active subwoofers it is not possible to defeat the low-pass filtering. That means that the pre-pro bass management filters will be on top of the low-pass filters inside the subwoofer. The built-in low-filters introduce a delay to the signal coming in (because they have poles). This delay is seen by MultEQ as acoustical delay and is reported in the results. That is why sometimes the subwoofer distance is reported to be longer than the physical measured distance. The setting should not be changed because the blend between the sub and the satellites has been designed based on this time delay.

The design constraints for MultEQ were that it (1) must fit within a small portion of the DSP so that other processes can also run and (2) it must use FIR filters because of the well-known artifacts that IIR filters cause particularly in the time domain response. As it turns out, these two requirements are contradicting. In order for FIR filters to be effective and capable of correcting to low frequencies, they must consist of several thousand coefficients (taps). The problem is that the CPU power required increases with the number of taps, hence the dilemma. What we did at Audyssey was to come up with a different way to partition the frequency axis so that we can use fewer taps and yet not completely give up on low frequency resolution (and therefore low frequency correction). This allows us to take a 512 tap filter that would normally have a resolution of 94 Hz (meaning that any peak or dip narrower than 94 Hz would be missed) and significantly improve its resolving power. The resolution of the filter actually varies continuously with frequency and starts at around 10 Hz. Does this mean that MultEQ can correct an arbitrarily narrow peak or dip at 30 Hz? Of course not. The reality is that in the MultEQ XT version found in receivers, we can correct broader features below 100 Hz better than narrow ones. For example, a lump that is half an octave wide at 50 Hz can be fixed. A narrow dip or peak that is 1/3 or 1/6 octaves wide and centered at 30 Hz will be improved, but not eliminated.

The on-screen display in the receiver has very limited graphics. Therefore it is not possible to really show what the MultEQ correction filter is doing at all frequencies. It appears to only be operating on 9 bands like a parametric equalizer, but this is not the case. What is shown is a very crude approximation to the MultEQ correction and it should not be used to read exact values of cut or boost at the 9 frequencies shown.

Furthermore, there is no display for the subwoofer filter. This doesn't mean that there is no subwoofer correction. It was not added to the display because of interface and memory considerations.

I think this thread is a great idea: efficient to have all the info in one place.

Would this be the place to compare other room equalization implementations, such as Yamaha's YPAO or Pioneer's MCACC or Moranz's eq system? I'm against bashing, so we'd keep it fact-based.

What do you think?

Ron

I would be VERY interested in such talk. I've only really read about MCACC and people seem to really like the ease of use and the results. But with the LFE issue on the Elite line, I'm looking into other systems.

One thing I've noticed is that the MCACC on the Elites have a 9 band eq; I would assume the more bands the better? what do the others have?

Do the others have Standing wave control and Reverb control, like on the Elites?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself since this may not be what is wanted in this thread...

I have been using the Audyssey Sound Equalizer (stand alone unit) for about 3 months now and it has made a huge difference in sound quality in my home theater. I have demo'ed the Sound EQ in & out of circuit to many of my friends and all agree they can hear a big difference - even my low-tech wife!

I first heard Audyssey demo'ed at the CEDIA convention last fall in Denver. Mike Thuresson, Audyssey Installer Program Manager, demo'ed a clip from the movie "Open Range". The demo was held in a tiny hotel room, maybe 18'X 20'. Mike played chapter 7 - a huge rainstorm with thunder. With Auyssey out, the front imaging was very good. I heard distinct sounds from the front left, center and front right speakers but very little from the surround channels. The thunder claps also sounded good from the sub. But when Mike switched Audyssey in (via the front panel bypass control), the audio suddenly surrounded me and I could hear distinct rain drops coming from all 5 speakers. The low frequency thunder claps shook me down to my feet. Mike referred to this as Audyssey creating an "Audio Bubble" around the listening area. What really amazed me was after I received and calibrated Audyssey in my home system, I tried the exact same movie clip and experienced the same "audio bubble" I heard during Mike's demo. The point is - this thing really works and works well!

Doesn't the standalone unit list at around $2500?
I would imagine that the MultEQ XT costs manufacturers around $25 at most to implement. I would imagine that the comparison is apples to oranges, with the Audyssey Pro being a much more sophisticated device...like a TacT Audio.

Has anyone used the Audyssey set-up with Mirage speakers? Was wondering how this would work with the omni directional type speakers.I was told by someone at Mirage it can be more difficult with the omni type speakers. But I have heard that Audyssey is very different from the other auto set-up systems.

I would be VERY interested in such talk. I've only really read about MCACC and people seem to really like the ease of use and the results. But with the LFE issue on the Elite line, I'm looking into other systems.

One thing I've noticed is that the MCACC on the Elites have a 9 band eq; I would assume the more bands the better? what do the others have?

Do the others have Standing wave control and Reverb control, like on the Elites?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself since this may not be what is wanted in this thread...

I think it's the perfect kind of discussion for this thread. Not much use discussing Audyssey without talking about its competition

And yes, the more bands the better, but Audyssey does things very differently than IIR band-equalization. Audyssey is more like a 512-band equalizer that corrects in the time domain as well. A standard parametric equalizer is far, far behind the technology that Audyssey is using.

I have been using the Audyssey Sound Equalizer (stand alone unit) for about 3 months now and it has made a huge difference in sound quality in my home theater. I have demo'ed the Sound EQ in & out of circuit to many of my friends and all agree they can hear a big difference - even my low-tech wife!

I first heard Audyssey demo'ed at the CEDIA convention last fall in Denver. Mike Thuresson, Audyssey Installer Program Manager, demo'ed a clip from the movie "Open Range". The demo was held in a tiny hotel room, maybe 18'X 20'. Mike played chapter 7 - a huge rainstorm with thunder. With Auyssey out, the front imaging was very good. I heard distinct sounds from the front left, center and front right speakers but very little from the surround channels. The thunder claps also sounded good from the sub. But when Mike switched Audyssey in (via the front panel bypass control), the audio suddenly surrounded me and I could hear distinct rain drops coming from all 5 speakers. The low frequency thunder claps shook me down to my feet. Mike referred to this as Audyssey creating an "Audio Bubble" around the listening area. What really amazed me was after I received and calibrated Audyssey in my home system, I tried the exact same movie clip and experienced the same "audio bubble" I heard during Mike's demo. The point is - this thing really works and works well!

Andre'

this is very interesting.

Was the speaker system configured with pre-pro when it was demoed without the Audyssey? I mean the channel level, dist, trim etc. The reason I ask is that Audyssey recommends to set the speakers configs to "0" and after the calibration is done it recommends those parameters. So when the Audyssey was turned off - the speaker config parameters on the pre/pro may not be optimal.

Would be interesting to see a comparison between a manually configured (SPL meter etc) pre-pro without Audyssey vs a prepro with Audyssey.

I was reading on another thread about Audyssey in the Denon 3806, and an assertion was made that 'Also, in the 3806 the 5.1 analog input does not pass through the DSP so you won't see the effects of MultEQ. The 2 channel analog inputs do see MultEQ and are properly bass managed.'

If this is the case, wouldn't that mean that listening to soundtracks that are decoded in HD-DVD or BlueRay players wouldn't sound as good as they could? I thought the whole point of the analog inputs was to bring in sound that was above and beyond the norm (ie, DVD-Audio, SACD, TrueHD, etc), so why would we want the room equalization turned off?

Assuming that Audyssey is implemented in the digital domain, this could change my entire approach for my upgrade. It would mean that I have one of two choices for optimal listening: a) get a preamp or a receiver that handles audio via HDMI, or b) get a preamp or receiver that digitizes the analog input (Meridian, perhaps?).

I was reading on another thread about Audyssey in the Denon 3806, and an assertion was made that 'Also, in the 3806 the 5.1 analog input does not pass through the DSP so you won't see the effects of MultEQ. The 2 channel analog inputs do see MultEQ and are properly bass managed.'

If this is the case, wouldn't that mean that listening to soundtracks that are decoded in HD-DVD or BlueRay players wouldn't sound as good as they could? I thought the whole point of the analog inputs was to bring in sound that was above and beyond the norm (ie, DVD-Audio, SACD, TrueHD, etc), so why would we want the room equalization turned off?

Assuming that Audyssey is implemented in the digital domain, this could change my entire approach for my upgrade. It would mean that I have one of two choices for optimal listening: a) get a preamp or a receiver that handles audio via HDMI, or b) get a preamp or receiver that digitizes the analog input (Meridian, perhaps?).

Who can help?

Thanks,

Ron

I would like to know this as well. Can you engage the Audyssey MultXT EQ on the Denon 5805 with the 7.1 external input and the 5.1 external input.

I would like to know this as well. Can you engage the Audyssey MultXT EQ on the Denon 5805 with the 7.1 external input and the 5.1 external input.

If anyone knows the answer please let me know.

I'm sure I've read this being discussed before. I forget the definitive answer, but it seems to me there was a representative from Audyssey on this forum. Does anyone know if he's still here to help us out? I can't see them not having it active on "ext. in" connections... that'd be a bit of a slap to the high-end SACD/DVD-A crowd.

I would like to see a continuation of the "missing bass" effect some (including me) are seeing with the receiver implementation of Audyssey. I'm using a Denon 2807.

I attached a graph of my before and after correction. The red line shows why my bass loses impact with Audyssey turned on. I am able to correct it somewhat using my BFD and raising the bass level but I am curious why there is the general fall-off from 45 Hz on down. I have a SVS 25-31 PC+ tuned to 20 Hz with one port plug.

I would like to see a continuation of the "missing bass" effect some (including me) are seeing with the receiver implementation of Audyssey. I'm using a Denon 2807.

I attached a graph of my before and after correction. The red line shows why my bass loses impact with Audyssey turned on. I am able to correct it somewhat using my BFD and raising the bass level but I am curious why there is the general fall-off from 45 Hz on down. I have a SVS 25-31 PC+ tuned to 20 Hz with one port plug.

That is exactly why I do not use Audyssey any longer. I like what it does for all other frequencies except the bass. Maybe the new CI models that have the PRO version will be able to modify the problem?

I would like to see a continuation of the "missing bass" effect some (including me) are seeing with the receiver implementation of Audyssey. I'm using a Denon 2807.

Back when I had the 3806 I tried "tricking" Audyssey by lowering my lower bass regions with the BFD BEFORE I ran Audyssey. This way, I figured Audyssey would hear that there wasnt as much bass down in the lower regions thereby my theory went that it wouldnt cut it as much when it ran...Then Id run Audyssey eq, aferwards I raised the bfd levels back up to the nomal spot and STILL didnt have enough lower region bass ...Scratches head, I couldnt figure how that was possible
I have a 2807 now ..also have a bfd but its not hooked up..maybe I can blow the dust off of it and start some new tinkering ..To be honest, I havent even plotted a graph this time arond with the 2807 as Im afraid of what it would look like down in the lower regions.
Plus as James said, I like what it does everywhere else.
Also just simply boosting the lfe up by 3~4 db after Audyssey runs is seeming to sound pretty good at the moment.
Dont know if I should re-open Pandora's box as it can be an obession

I too had Audyssey "remove" bass information when I ran it on my 5805. I have an SMS1 connected to the 5805 as well. My fix was also to reduce the level on the SMS before running Audyssey and then afterwards increase the level on the SMS and boost the 15-40Hz range. This seemed to work OK.

Today, I moved my subs around a bit and decided to redo the Audyssey. I did a few things different and this time Audyssey didn't remove ANY bass info. It's all still there (based on the sweeps with the SMS) Here's what I did:

1. Turn Audyssey off
2. Set SMS to no EQ
3. Run speaker level test on 5805 and use the SMS to set the sub level to match the other speaker levels (used radio shack sound meter for this)
4. Run Audyssey and use all the test points possible (8 on the 5805)
5. Use SMS to tweak any frequencies as needed (very little tweaking was needed here as all the bass was present down to 12 Hz or so. I just smoothed it out a little more).
6. Use SMS (or SW level setting on the 5805) to set desired sub level (I like to run my subs about 5dB higher than the other speakers, your tastes may differ).

Don't know if this will work for anyone else but it worked for me I also don't know if moving the subs had something to do with it. Don't see why it would but who knows.

What about someone that doesn't have an external EQ such as an SMS-1, how can we fix the lower bass region? I haven't purchased my 2895 but am a little worried about what I am reading about how people's lower bass region has been affected by Audyssey.

ok so i have a marantz 7001 and i too hate the bass sqaushing of the audyssey system but like it for other things.

maybe i'm missing something here so set me straight if i am --

in my case, audyssey set my fronts and center to large, the crossover to 80hz, and the bass to MIX and it lowered my sub level 11.5 db's . it also did it's thing with the room eq. i have a hsu stf-3 and the folks over there said they also see this happening alot with audyssey (to be fair they did not mention audyssey by name but said "auto eq's or something like that). they suggested setting all speakers to small and setting the crossover to 80hz in the receiver.

ok so then i go back into my setup, change the speakers to all small, and take the sub level up to 0.0 db's. everything is still intact with the other settings (including eq) so what have i really done? i have heard others mention that audyssey is an all or nothing solution--it wont allow changes to it's settings. yet i seem to be able to make changes to some things and keep things i want.

am i doing this all wrong? or is this something with how it's implemented on marantz (other's seem always to reference the denon implementation)? for what it's worth, i like the audyssey eq for movies and tv, but for music it is WAAAAAY to bright for my tastes.

I have not read this thread in it's word for word, but we had a pretty good one a while ago that Chris from Audyssey participated in. In case you read the part where I got POed at Chris and acted in less than a gentlemanly way, we got that worked out in PMs ages ago. Chris is a great guy. Post 145 has a FAQ that he wrote for us, which is a good read.

in my case, audyssey set my fronts and center to large, the crossover to 80hz, and the bass to MIX and it lowered my sub level 11.5 db's. it also did it's thing with the room eq.

Technically speaking, your Marantz set your speakers up that way... Audyssey has nothing to do with it although the processes are (sometimes transparently) combined. The "thing with the room eq" is Audyssey... in its entirety.

Quote:

Originally Posted by govner

i have heard others mention that audyssey is an all or nothing solution--it wont allow changes to it's settings. yet i seem to be able to make changes to some things and keep things i want.

You can change all of the speaker config stuff with Audyssey still running because again, the speaker setups are not Audyssey's doing. Audyssey does it's measurements based on the receiver's auto-config though, so you could be changing the sound somewhat by doing it. On Denon, that causes Audyssey to change the colour of its light, but it's still running. I'm not sure how the Marantz lets you know that.

so i still have one question--if my speakers are set to large, and they only have a frequency response down to 49hz (+/-3db), what happens to the bass frequencies below 49 that are mixed into those two channels? i know they may still be output from the speakers but at much lower db's. wouldn't i want my sub which is +/-3 at 18 hz to pick those up?

i very well may be missing something obvious here, but it would seem to me that i would always want all my speakers bass managed (particularly during movies) since i would want the sub to pick up any frequencies below say 60hz (or whatever) so i'm not "missing" those frequencies since my main FL & FR can not handle these very well.

i could then always select source direct when listening to music right?

You can change all of the speaker config stuff with Audyssey still running because again, the speaker setups are not Audyssey's doing. Audyssey does it's measurements based on the receiver's auto-config though, so you could be changing the sound somewhat by doing it. On Denon, that causes Audyssey to change the colour of its light, but it's still running. I'm not sure how the Marantz lets you know that.

I've said the same and found out that it is operational true but not entirely so. The Denon auto-set-up (distance, level, BM) is actually part of the Audyssey program and the results are transferred to the Denon by it. The EQ portion is, of course, also Audyssey but somewhat separable since it can be defeated.